In today’s article, skilled outdoorsman Wayne van Zwoll teaches us how to start a fire. This basic survival skill was once commonly held by Americans. In the modern world, fewer men and women understand the basics of firestarting. If you spend any time outside of the house, this is a valuable ability to learn.
“The man flung a look back along the way he had come. The Yukon lay a mile wide and hidden under three feet of ice [and] as many feet of snow…. He was a newcomer …. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. [That] impressed him as cold [but] did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature….
“As he turned to go on, he spat speculatively. There was a sharp, explosive crackle that startled him…. At fifty below, spittle crackled on the snow, but this spittle had crackled in the air. Undoubtedly, it was colder than fifty below …. And then it happened. At a place where [he perceived solid ice], the man broke through. It was not deep. He wet himself halfway to the knees before he floundered out….
“He would have to build a fire. [Lighting a] shred of birch-bark he took from his pocket, [he] fed the young flame with wisps of dry grass and the tiniest dry twigs. He worked slowly and carefully. [At] seventy-five below zero, a man [with wet feet] must not fail in his first attempt to build a fire ….
“He should not have built the fire under the [snow-laden] spruce. [Suddenly,] high up in the tree ,one bough capsized its load of snow. It grew like an avalanche … and the fire was blotted out! The man was shocked …. For a moment, he sat and stared at the spot where the fire had been….”
Looking Back
Jack London’s short story, “To Build A Fire,” was first published in 1902. A second version, six years later, would become a classic. Traveling Yukon wilderness with a native dog, the protagonist has a route and a plan. But he has ignored an old-timer’s warnings. Thin ice breaks, immersing his feet. A fire, his salvation, is suddenly snuffed. Frozen hands seal his fate. Unable to perform basic tasks, even to kill his dog to thaw his fingers, he slumps in the snow. The bitter cold sucks his life away.
In the 1902 tale, the cold is less severe. There’s no dog. The fire is not snuffed. Frost-bitten, the chechaquo recovers.
Humans are fragile. We succumb to conditions that less sophisticated creatures, like native dogs, endure. Food, water and shelter usually top rosters of requisites for survival. But warmth can be our most immediate need. People have gone weeks without food, days without water. In many places and most conditions, a tree canopy and a rudimentary windbreak suffice as shelter overnight, if not for many nights. But deep cold can be lethal in hours. Even above 32 degrees F, wind and moisture drawing body heat can bring on uncontrollable shivering, then hypothermia.
Fueled by calories in food, exercise can generate body heat. Proper clothing throttles its loss. Hot drink chases chills. But the most effective aid when your core temperature begins to drop is fire. Starting and sustaining a fire within minutes, whatever the place or weather, is a basic survival skill, useful even if you’re not lost or injured or facing brutal weather.
My Experience with Firestarting
A fellow steeped in Indian lore showed me how to make fire with a bow-drill, a tool said to date back 7,000 years. The bow is roughed from a rigid, arc-shaped limb 24 to 30 inches long. A cord joining its ends is looped about the middle of a spindle 8 to 14 inches long, 1/2 inch to 1 inch in diameter. The spindle is held vertically, its flat or rounded base engaging a divot in a “hearth-board” or limb hewed flat. One hand pressing a block atop the spindle, you run the bow back and forth with the other. Friction from the spindle rotating in the divot forms and heats wood dust. Smoldering, it’s pressed into a wad of tinder.
Even on a sunny day with ideal materials, assembling and using a bow-drill takes practice!
Striking flint with steel can also make fire. Like components of the bow-drill, both are best kept out of the weather. Ditto tinder, whatever the tool. To ensure results from modest spark, you’re wise to pack a dozen fire-starting tablets or wafers — or Vaseline-impregnated lint-wads or cotton balls — in Zip-lock bags or old film cans. Slightly separating the fibers of the cotton balls as you prepare to strike a spark makes them easier to ignite.
Wooden strike-anywhere matches have started many campfires. Waterproof canisters the size of 12-bore shotshell keep them useful.
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Also traditional in hunting kits: cigarette lighters. But the striker-wheels are hard to spin with cold thumbs, and sparks are anemic. Resulting flame wilts in light breeze. Fuel reservoirs are small.
In my experience, friction-driven lighters for lanterns, bar-b-q grills, and acetylene torches are less than handy afield and/or quickly wear to the point of requiring many strikes to get a useful spark.
The Right Direction?
The best fire-starter to cross my path did so incidentally.
“Come visit,” said Darrell Holland. The gunmaker had recently moved his family and shop from western Oregon to Montana. “You’ll like the new range.” Short miles from Billings, his 350-acre canyon and bluffs seem made to order for his shooting schools. Plates of various shapes and sizes at unmarked distances test range estimates and hold-offs for wind. Vegetation and land form also encourage “stalking steel,” which Holland applauds: “Closer is better.” For some pokes, students must “get off the bipods.”
I digress. “Do you still pack a Lightning Strike?” Darrell asked. A decade earlier, he’d wowed me with this tool’s hearty cascades of sparks. “It’s still the best.”
Lightning Strike comprises a ferrocerium rod in a machined aluminum tube (blue, green, black or red). A slot in the wind-proof tube exposes the rod to a steel striker on an elastic cord. A vigorous thrust with the striker down the rod, the tube nose close to a petro-wad, ignites the wad with a hail of sparks.
The standard Lightning Strike, capped, has a carry length of 7½ inches. A compact version (same 1-inch diameter) measures 5½ inches. The ferrocerium rods differ in length — 2½ inches for the standard model, 1¾ inches for the compact. Strikers are identical. Priced at $70, either version ships with a sturdy canvas belt pouch and enough petro-impregnated cotton in the tube to light “10 or 12 fires.” Replacement striker assemblies list for $32; ferrocerium rods fetch $17. (Held by a set screw, the rod is easy to change with the supplied allen wrench.) A Napalm Tinder Kit, sold separately at $17, has nine large impregnated wafers in a tub the size of a holiday sampler of mint jelly. You get up to four minutes of flame per wafer.
Following the Path
Other fire-starters also package a ferrocerium rod with a striker. Basic, but of sound design, the Endure Survival Metal Match Kit features a 2-inch striker and a 3/8-inch-diameter rod with a handle of exotic African wood. They’re attached by a leather thong. A waterproof polymer case includes Vaseline-impregnated cotton balls.
“Metal match” has been used to label a confusing range of fire-starters. Some require fuel. I’ve not included these here, as I’m averse to wet fuel in a survival device. Fuel spills. It leaks. It can flare and like a dying battery use itself up just when you need it. A hunter, I object to its smell in my kit.
A striker and a ferrocerium rod reliably shower sparks. But until joined in use, they’re inert. Their utility remains unchanged. They’re always ready. Fuel tablets or impregnated wafers last for years.
What if injury or frostbite prevents you from using two hands? BlastMatch, by Ultimate Survival Technologies, requires just one. Conceived by a Special Forces veteran to help downed pilots, BlastMatch is the size of a big pocketknife. The hood of its sturdy polymer case reverses to expose a spring-loaded ferrocerium bar. Pushing this bar sharply against a log or a rock brings a blizzard of sparks. Individually wrapped BlastMatch tablets, sold as WetFire Tinder (a 12-pack for $11), can be whittled into shards that ignite even on water! A tablet burns for up to five minutes; it can be snuffed and repackaged.
Like the Endure Survival Metal Match, BlastMatch retails for about $20. Either would serve well as a primary fire-starter or a back-up to a Lightning Strike unit.
Wait! If these devices are effective and reliable, wouldn’t one be enough? Verily, you may need none. But if someday your survival hinges on a quick fire, you’ll not weigh the price of duplication. No fire-starting device was developed simply to make ignition more convenient.
Conclusion
Thoughtful planning and a measure of caution can nix the need for emergency action. London’s protagonist made several mistakes, the first being to ignore the old-timer who had insisted that “no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below.” In severe cold, small errors can kill. A partner might have perceived the thin ice or caught him as it broke, could have helped him gather firewood, might have heeded the snow load in the spruce, would have helped with minor but crucial tasks. Decisions made with a partner often bring clarity, sometimes compromise. And safety.
Wisely, the chechaquo emerged from the creek seeking its high-water mark, where lay a “deposit of dry fire-wood” and “last year’s grasses.” Building his fire upon a base of large branches kept “young flame from drowning itself in the snow.”
He avoided the haste of novice fire-builders who light a tinder teepee before securing enough fuel to grow the blaze. Fire inhales twigs, shavings, pine needles and grasses. Then, unless fed bigger sticks, it dies. Of course, he erred placing the fire under a snowy conifer. Had he not pulled branches from the tree, heat from the blaze might well have loosened the snow, triggering a similar cascade off its boughs.
Under a tree, too, a fire is hidden from air searches. It’s most apt to draw attention in a meadow — especially from a distance and at low sight angles. A big opening affords room to array clothes, sleeping bags, other bits of color. A message can be stamped out in undisturbed snow.
A knife is only as useful as your hands. But a long, stout blade trumps a small, slim one. It should be big enough to split mid-size limbs into tinder. Injury, rough weather and the possibility you’re lost can argue against travel; so your pack should also have rations and water enough for a fire-side stay.
Warm, you’ve beaten the most immediate threat.
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